On Friday, a bunch of Lorwyn Eclipsed spoilers were revealed in the MagicCon: Atlanta Preview Panel. Understandably, many players are excited about the return to this plane, ourselves included.
As if the preview panel somehow wasn’t enough on its own, the spoilers have kept on coming. Today, we’ve got an exciting card to share with you. For winning the World Championship in 2023, Jean Emmanuel Depraz gets a brand-new card in his honor. This card is part of the Lorwyn Eclipsed main set and thus will be Standard legal like other World Championship winner’s cards.
MTG Formidable Speaker in Standard
Formidable Speaker has a lot going in its favor. It’s a discard outlet, a creature tutor, and even lets you untap other permanents when applicable. As a 2/4, it doesn’t die to most damage-based removal. The creature tutor aspect of the card is undoubtedly the most intriguing part, as there are a lot of ways to abuse this ability in Standard.
In traditional midrange shells like Simic midrange, Formidable Speaker ensures that you’ll be able to set up a powerful play for your next turn. Curving Llanowar Elves into Formidable Speaker and tutoring up Ouroboroid for the following turn puts a ton of pressure on the opponent.
Where Formidable Speaker really shines, though, is in decks that heavily rely on a specific creature to pull ahead. Selesnya decks centered around Brightglass Gearhulk are great examples. Brightglass Gearhulk is an incredible card. The issue is that decks currently built to maximize it can fall short in games where you don’t draw the elite engine. Formidable Speaker provides extra redundancy.
The Standard shell where Formidable Speaker looks poised to have an enormous impact is Sultai Reanimator. This archetype has emerged since the printing of Superior Spider-Man. The goal is to get a huge creature like Ardyn, the Usurper into the graveyard, then cast Superior Spider-Man to make a 4/4 copy of it.
Formidable Speaker helps both as a way to get a bomb from your hand into your graveyard and as a way to search for Superior Spider-Man on command. The consistency this card adds to various archetypes cannot be overstated.
Formidable Speaker in Other Formats
Formidable Speaker should be a strong card for Standard, but that isn’t the only place where it has potential. Thanks to its ability to untap other permanents, this creature has extra usage in older formats.
In cEDH, Formidable Speaker can untap Gaea’s Cradle as well as broken artifacts like Mana Vault. This level of upside on a creature tutor could be enough for it to earn a slot in Thrasios, Triton Hero shells.
The Gaea’s Cradle synergies also extend to Legacy. The fact that Formidable Speaker is also an Elf gives it an extra boost, too. Elves decks aren’t super popular in Legacy right now, yet it’s worth pointing out in case Heritage Druid makes a comeback.
Additionally, Formidable Speaker enables you to reliably find Nadu, Winged Wisdom. Whether Formidable Speaker proves to be a strong enough tutor to see play alongside the likes of Green Sun’s Zenith, we’ll just have to see (it does tutor Nomads en-Kor for the other piece of the combo, which Zenith can’t do).
This doesn’t even take into account the fact that Formidable Speaker should be an awesome addition to a variety of green Commander decks. The flexibility here is outrageous.
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